>> cenk: karl rove and newt gringrich in a republican cat fight--meow, tonight on "the young turks".com. "viewpoint" is next. [ ♪ theme music ♪ ] >> john: today john mccain held a town hall meeting with he was heckled insulted and verbally abuseed so rudely by

people who used to support him at one point he had to check a mirror just to make sure he wasn't chuck hagel. in a marriage equality ad, it's also the only commercial on tv that does not feature the progressive lady. why won't president obama sign the executive order for lgbt. today is the 86th bird of sydney portier, and the 50th birthday of charles barkley and had he live, it would be the birthday of kirk cobain as well. congress can, in fact, do stuff. this is "viewpoint"." [ ♪ music ♪ ]

>> john: good evening i'm john fugelsang. thank you so much for joining us. with the budget sequester that would tut a trillion dollars from the budget, speaker of the house john boehner warned of dire consequences if it's allowing to through. a wall street journal opinion piece, you'll be shocked to hear blamed the entire mess on president obama. boehner named just a couple of things that he pushed through the house must be avoided. it threatens u.s. national security, thousands of jobs and more. america's military budget would be slashed, border security, law enforcement, aviation safety and many other programs would all have diminished resources. now a they have to do is gray to cut a matching trillion dollars plus out of programs like social

security which voters overwhelmingly want untouched and boehner and the republicans will make the sequester go away. well, that's not going to happen. shouldn't the speaker be willing to compromise and take it off the table even if that meant to graying to revenue hikes tax increases for those who can easily afford tax increases? apparently that's not going to happen either. meanwhile, in action is having its consequences. the defense department told some 800,000 civilian employees to prepare for unpaid days off once these cuts take place. secretary of state john kerry warned allowing the sequester is bad for the nation's foreign policy as well. >> it's hard to tell the leadership of any number of countries that they have to resolve their economic issues if we don't resolve our own. let's reach the responsible agreement that prevents the

senseless cuts. let's not lose this opportunity because of politics. >> john: rand pal agrees with the part about not losing this opportunity. only the opportunity he seems to want is a bigger sequester. >> this is not enough cuts. so we shouldn't be--if we get rid of this it shows that we're not serious as a nation about doing anything about our debt crisis. >> john: in other words have some cat food, grandma. through, there are questions about how much impact the cuts would is for this year. the congressional budget office reports while they would lob $1.2 trillion, this year's budget would drop by $85 billion on paper. it's real impact might be less. they expect $35 billion cut from discretionary programs and another $9 billion from mandatory spending. however, the congressional budget office also predicts as many as three-quarters of a million jobs could be lost if mr. boehner has his way. the good news, if there is any

came from white house press secretary jay carney who recalled other republican red lines that the g.o.p. went on to kind of have to smudge. >> we would never allow tax rates go up. we'll never allow them go up on anyone making less than $1 million. and we'll never let the top rate go back to the clinton era all of these things happened. do you know why they happened? the american people supported those positions that the president took. >> john: but will the american believe in g.o.p. cry that this is all the president asphalt? president's fault. for more let's go to robert reich, labor secretary under president bill clinton and author of "we beyond outrage." good evening. it's a pleasure to have you back. >> good evening. >> john: is president obama to blame as speaker boehner insists if the sequester goes through. if i hold a gun to your head and

hold you hostage do i get to blame you that you're late to work? >> only in ad verse way. they suffer from amnesia. they don't remember when the republicans were threatening to basically not pay america's bills. they were going to default on all of our bills and not raise the debt ceiling. together with the white house the republicans agreed to this sequester if there could be no agreement between republicans and democrats on a sensible plan between august 2011 and now. and obviously there has been no agreement even though the president has agreed to $1.5 trillion of sending cuts. that's what boehner is not saying. the president has already agreed to those spending cuts, and we have $600 billion of tax increases over the next ten years on the wealthy. but more needs to be done.

>> john: the american people may suffer from amnesia but maybe our republican friends suffer from the airborne amnesia as well. inthere was a government shutdown and it didn't work. >> no, the american public held it against the republicans. newt gringrich became the whipping boy for the country. here's what worries me this time john. things have changed. right now a lot of republican members of congress are in safe districts and in safe seats. their biggest worry is a tea party challenger from the right. they don't care what the american public thinks. the american public already holds congress in low esteem, and a lot of these members of congress say we don't care what the american public cares about because we want to make sure that we don't lose our seat to a tea party on the right.

and so they are--or they seem to be willing to sacrifice the nation's economy and sacrifice the other things that we all believe in and americans want like social security, medicare, education, job training, all the things we come to expect and understand is necessary along with the military. >> john: well, i recall john boehner boasting how he got 98% of what he wanted in the last deal. doesn't it seem like there is plenty of blame to go around in terms of republicans and democrats not trying to fix this problem rather than assigning blame. >> there is blame to go around all the time. but when the republicans say that the democrats and the white house have not come forward with any spending cuts, they seem to, again, going back to amnesia they seem to disregard the $1.5 trillion of spending cuts that the president has agreed to. we're going back to zero. they have an odd arithmetic.

when they agree to spending cuts. they say fine and then say they want more spending cuts. they want to go after social security and medicare. that's their goal. but they don't want to say that's their goal. we would rather the democrats to sacrifice what are essentially the most popular government programs that democrats protected for years now. >> john: the only alternative is a sane tax code that doesn't treat people who make 400 millions dollars a year as those who make $10,000 a year. is the white house overstating overstatingties case a bit? >> the real fear that i have is not just the cuts that are going to hurt a lot of people. non-defense discretionary is where we have the programs for the poor, women children, i fear that degree of cutting when the economy is fragile is going to drain so much demand out of

the economy that we're back in recession. i frankly don't think that republicans care about that. they don't care about high unemployment. they've shown them that they don't care about it. they don't want the government to spend anything to make up for the lack of consumer demand. they're wethey are wedded to their republican orthodoxy that has shown again and again not to work. >> john: i want to ask you questions about breaking news that proves shaming republicans sometimes works. rick scott the latest opponent of the affordable care act to agree to expand medicare in his state. he has been one of its most bitter opponents and say he caved. do you expect opposition now that the elections are behind us. >> it may. governor who is said we are not going to buy in medicaid, we're not going to do that and the affordable care act are succumbing to public pleasure

pleasure mainly that the public is beginning to understand that the federal government would pay for most of this,. >> john: it's insane but i come to expect knoll less. robertnothing less. robert reich, thank you so much once again for coming on the program. >> john: thanks, john. >> john: you've horrified me, but you're brilliant. going to michael from the daily beast. welcome back. >> thanks. >> john: you wrote about this, and hilariously. will you try to explain john boehner's strategy refuseing to negotiate and insisting this president bears all the blame? >> i think he's just trying to make lemonade out of lemon. which is to say he has a caucus. i don't wanting to tooto go too

sympathetic, what he says to his wife in late night phone conversations i don't know but i think he knows he must know on some level that his party really risks getting blamed for this. this is no other reason for him to be doing things like writing this he had tore yam like this op-ed in the editorial saying obama is to blame. his strategy is to just try to bush it off on obama frantically knowing that deep down that's probably not going to work if. >> john: some would argue that that they're telling wall street editors exactly what they want to hear. if it goes through and most people expect, i mentioned to secretary robert reich the

speaker bragged he got 98% of what he wanted. >> sure, that included $900 billion in cuts, which was part of the $1.5 trillion that robert reich referred to. i really don't think that he thinks that he can get away with it. i don't think the republicans are going to get away with this. now the obama administration shares some of the blame sure. if bob woodward was right, it was the idea fine, but republicans agreed to it. the republicans in the house voted for it, made it happen. it would not have been made law if the republicans had not voted to make this law. they talked at the time about what a great idea the sequester was. quotes from paul ryan and boehner and many of them of how terrific this was. they are the ones who have been

pushing for cuts cuts, cuts. now the cuts are coming, and your average american who is not a dedicated democrat or dedicated republican are going to look at it sand say cuts, yes, that's what the republican want. >> cenk: really, how can boehner on one hand, michael insist that the cuts will be bad for national security. on the other hand refusing to compromise. wasn't there a national security caucus in the g.o.p. that would object to that sort of politics once upon a time? >> well, this is an interesting development. i think this national security caucus in the republican party has diminished in size. it's not as vocal as it used to be. it consists of john mccain, lindsey graham and it doesn't appear to be too many republicans who are willing to

speak up in behalf of that. this is something that has taken the figures in the administration by surprise. everybody thought that the republicans would not stand for big defense cuts. but here we come to crunch times and the republicans seem to be happy for large defense cuts even in bases in their own districts. even bases in their own districts. this is a remarkable thing. so this paul-ite, if i may this paul-ite libertarian reflex in the republican party seems to be spreading and this may an crucial moment in that wing of the republican party asserting itself. >> john: you mentioned the paul-ite wing. we can assume that boehner is the sane one checking in with the president and the crazy wing of his party. but in that sound bite by senator rand paul, we just heard that he wants more cuts in the budget. how does that square with

boehner saying they want more cuts when it will cost thousands of jobs. >> i don't really understand boehner saying that. in the wall street journey. it would be in his interest to play down the severity of these cuts. that's what he should be doing. >> john: but isn't he just--if this goes over the cliff the public will blame the president. so logic in facts and history don't matter, does it? >> i guess they don't matter. if this goes on for a long time, and if the economic consequences are severe, then it may reach a point where people actually do blame the president. but i don't know. i think it's a long way away. it's very hypothetical. if i were a republican i would be really, really worried this week. you know, i just don't see how your average middle of the road voter is going to decide that

this is more barack obama's fault than it is the republicans in the house's fault. >> john: i agree. the president has the bigger bully pulpit than the speaker. michael tomasky. thank you for coming on the program to make sense of this ugly. >> thank you. >> john: equal rights for all workers. that shouldn't even be a controversy. but some how it still is for the lgbt community. that's up next.

>> john: time for the thing of

the day. today is our lesson of the day. the lesson is check usual facts. senator mitch mcconnell should have done that when a con sit wasn't told him guantanamo bay prisoners who apply could apply for benefits through the g.i. bill. don't be hard for mitch. save your mockery for breitbart.com. friends of hamas originated as a joke. journalism is hard. i'm not a journalist by i look to sharpening my new fact faking skills when sarah palin joins he's at at al-jazeera, that's still

on right? letters was sent to president obama requesting that he sign an executive on banning federal contractors from december crime nating against lesbian gay by sexual, and transgender or lgbt americans. this comes on a day that saw renewed push for marriage equality with a launch of $1 million campaign from the respect for marriage coalition eye heighted by a new commercial featuring media appearances are prominent americans. >> they ought to have the same rights. >> freedom means freedom for everyone. >> john: wow those lefties. let's bring out lead counselor for the employee non-discrimination act and

founder and president of freedom to work. welcome to the show. >> great to be back. >> john: great to have you sir. what has been the reaction from all these letters from all these human rights organizations requesting finally an executive action from the president on federal contractors' nondiscrimination? >> we're building strong momentum in this campaign to bandies crime nation against gays and lesbians transjen transgender. many are joining across the board asking the president to finally take this executive action that he promised in writing four years to do. we build a strong case. the white house staff continues to point to congress to deflect attention, and we say we agree. congress should act and they are, in fact, plans this year

for a committee mark up of a bill to bandies crime nation against gay and transgender americans. there will be a vote that harry reid promised three years ago. that is not a reason to wait. when the do-nothing congress stalls the president should take action to do right by the american people. in this case saving taxpayer money from being wasted on discrimination. >> john: tico, i'm amazed that in 2013 we have to have this kind of conversation on this kind of debate. the president has been reluctant to sign this order saying he prefer congress act on the nondiscrimination act. i hate to beat up on harry reid more than i already have this month, but let me do that right now. why do you think harry reid is refusing to bring this to the floor to vote. >> it's been three years since harry reid promised he would bring that to the floor to vote

hasn't stated a reason. i don't know what the reason is, and no one can explain it, but the good news out of the white house position on the executive order is that they point to the senate, they point to the house and say they should act. we say we agree. we would love for the white house legislative team to lobby aggressively with harry reid to bring up that vote. we think there is important public education when you hold a vote. a great debate that is 90% of americans mistakenly believe this has already passed congress. we have public education to do and that senate vote would help. >> john: the lobbying could be just a phone call to harry reid. is there renewed urgency with the sequester about it take place with the fear of the layoff of federal employees.

>> we know as you covered at the top of your show there will be 10s of thousand of federal contractors laid off from their jobs, and we want to make sure that no one is laid off for discriminatory reasons. we've had federal policies in form of federal orders that protect contractors were religious and gender discrimination. we say there should not be lgbt discrime either. you should be rated opposite your skill and work. we want contractors engineers for the next rounds of our military building bridges and highways, we want the best to serve the taxpayer. we want the best. the sequester is the reason why the president should act right away and set the tone for these unfortunate layoffs that are coming that you want to make the layoff on neutral

non-discriminatory reasons. >> john: you would think with the republican friends this would not be heard. with this ad do you think the ad was effective and do you see folks protesting their use in it. >> i think those conservatives have spoken about marriage equality so often those weren't aberrations of quotes picked out of the air. i don't think they will protest. i think it's a great ad. we're making progress with republicans. just today a minnesota state senator, a republican state senator said he would support the freedom to marry in minnesota. as that pushed forward this year giving gay couples the freedom to marry. there is mark kirk senator of illinois who is back from his stroke, and he has recovered. the president greeted him with the explodeing fist bump. mark kirk is caller for a vote. we're going it see a growing

number supporting fairness. it's time for the vote and time for the president to sign the executive order. >> john: allowing citizens to marry who they want is a liberal and conservative point of few. tico almeda. thank you for your time on the show tonight. >> thank you, it's great to be here. >> john: you probably know that sugar is bad for you. you might not know that sugar is extremely bad for you. that's ahead.

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>> john: tonight in our continuing wtf america series we look at one of the southern states that most epitomizes wtf in america. mississippi. now, i'm not here to disparage mississippi. this are many intelligent people from mississippi. they all share one thing in common, they no longer live in mississippi. members of the mississippi legislature still live there. let's look at some of the current bills in the mississippi

legislature waiting vote. house bill 1128 has wtf mississippi written all over it. it prohibits counties and cities from food regulations such as nutritional labeling in restaurant and keeping toys out of meals. we know that the state's latest ad slogan, mississippi come for the cuisine and stay for open heart surgery. they seem to forget that they lost the war and they were technically and morally the bad guys. how to explain they still have the confederate flag on their state flag and flew that flag over the state capital. instead of saying the south will rise again how about saying the state i.q. levels will rise again. not all the laws are bad.

they want to raise the speed limit from 70 to 75. this is very humane, any law that allows people to get out of mississippi just a few minutes sooner, it's a beautiful thing. deep. like me. [ male announcer ] head & shoulders deep clean for men. ♪ ♪

>> john: we're talking about sugar today and i asked our viewers to tweet in their thoughts on this sweet subject. to esther wrote, sugar is the heroin of our society. anyone strung out on sugar makes as good a record as keith richards did on heroin: easter is now a month away, it's a good time to remind everyone, sugar will kill you. the box of chocolates that your boyfriend got you is not so romantic after all.

er sugar is toxic that is the biggest cause of the obesity problem in this country especially among children. now the doctor first gained national attention through a video posted on youtube called "sugar the bitter truth" which to date has been viewed more than 3 million times. >> sugar and sucrose are equal equally bad. >> john: it's not just cakes and cookies, sugar and corn syrup is hidden in processed foods sauces and bread. check your ingredients each and every day you're ingesting more sugar than you even know. joining me now thankfully by satellite so he can't see all the cookies we have in the green

room for our guest dr. robert lustig, professor of pediatrics at ucsf school of medicine, and author of "fat chance: beating the odds against sugar processed cooed obesity and disease." >> let me correct something. i never said that sugar is the leading cause of obesity. it is a cause. look at the diets of physicians and nurses health study and said two of the worst offenders in terms of weight gain in our diet are french fries and potato chips. sugar-sweetened beverages took a distant third.

it is "a" cause not "the" cause. it does not cause weight gain. it tips you over from weight gain to metabolic syndrome. thethe con stallalation of diseases likely cancer and dementia. that's where the money goes. that's what is causing the decline in our health and also chewing up our healthcare resources to the point that medicare will be broke by the year 2024. this is the reason why this is anan egregious and important problem to deal with. >> john: have you ever had scientists try to refute the research. >> only those who are taking money from the food industry. that's remarkable. don't you think for one moment that if any of the science was incorrect that i would still be standing? they would have taken me down a long time ago.

the food industry can't wait for me to stick my neck out so they can cut it off. the fact is i'm still standing and the data just keeps coming in showing our egregious sugar can be. not just in the united states. australia altered it's dietary guidelines to restrict shawing consumption. and the u.k. issued a report they need a soda task and food ban of food market to go children. >> john: we're seeing the affects. you do see that the last 30 years of nutrition information in america has been wrong. i agree. i think our current america food pyramid should be pear shaped. how so. how do you think it has been so wrong. >> we went low fat. we went low fat on the basis of some data that turns out not to be completely correct.

we didn't understand what we were doing at the time. but the bottom line is when go low fat food tastes like cardboard. food industry had to make the food palatable so she they saided sugar. corn syrup appeared in everything, not just soda and juice but barbecue sauce salad dressing hamburger buns, hamburger meat, etc. we consume 22 teaspoons of added sugar per day. the american heart association recommends that we cut that back to six to nine teaspoons of added sugar per day. that's a reduction by two-thirds to three-quarters. now let's see where that sugar is hiding. one-third of it is in sugar beverages as you would expect. one sixth of it is in candy desserts. fully one-half of added sugar in

our diet is in things that we stint know have sugar. even if i could snap my fingers right now and eliminate all the sugar-sweetened beverages off the face of the earth right now we would be over our limit. >> john: in my house we eliminated anything with high fructose syrup we were shocked how hard it was to buy food at all. when we were growing up in was only one heavy kid in the classroom. now it's half the classroom. do you trace that to the high fructose corn syrup is available in united states, japan. but this obesity pandemic is worldwide. the pacific rim has the same problems that we do. australia does not have high

fructose corn syrup. it doesn't matter if it's high truck toes corn syrupfructose corn syrup or sugar. glucose is the molecule, and glucose is not very interesting. you don't see anybody chugging koro syrup. we have data, we have correlating data and one week from today we'll are caus have causative data. >> john: i could talk to you about this all night and we didn't even get to artificial sweeteners. thank you for your time on this show. and thank you for area work on the subject. >> thank you. >> john: you won't believe this footage coming up next.

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>> john: immigration reform. a popular idea in washington after the politicians saw the affect of latino votes on election days. john mccain emphasized the need for better board security. you think that would appeal to his particular red-meat base, but it wasn't good enough. >> you said build the dang fence. where's the fence? >> in case you missed it, i showed you. >> that's not a fence. >> that's not a fence? that's a banana. we put up a banana with about $600 million worth of probations that we have. if if you look up the constitution of the united states we're not allowed to have an armed militia on our borders. because that's what our founding fathers wanted. your problem is with them, not with me. >> john: he said banana that's funny. it makes me forget that he was against it then for it, and then against it again. anyone on the path of

citizenship for immigrants some people said only guns would will be the solution. let's bring in my panel to get some decorum back in here. actor and comedian sherr oh od small, and act friend judy gold. and comedian and writer frank conniff. known to the ages as tv's frank. thank youthank you for joining. how well do you think this will go across. >> they need to give respect to mccain. 's a war hero. he does not need to be yelled at by an 88-year-old man. >> he's not 88.

>> john: but this is the same john mccain who had to pander to the most extreme wing. >> i don't agree that john mccain deserves respect where every he goes. when he gets heckled like this, you think jerks heckle him. he's awesome. no he's not awesome at all. >> i'm thinking john mccain. >> i said old people, are you shocked by that. >> i don't think he's that old. >> john: doer could immigration be the schism that barack obama is looking to drive a wedge between the republicans and tea party folks. they tried the 47% but this seems to be bringing the schism. >> people don't want the fence or they do want the fence. >> john: they do want the fence and they want no mexicans coming over here. and mccain realizes that you can't get to the white house without the latino base. >> it's all about the latino

base. if there were less latinos in the country, he would be back it with no fences. >> cenk: now he's off the fence again. and you're right, it's all about pandering, and from a war hero, some people expect much more. >> i did that banana joke and killed with it. i can't believe he didn't get a crowd. >> john: vice president joe biden had a more pleasant town hall meeting probably because did he it online. when asked about a high capacity magazine biden quote get a shotgun. take one of the shotguns out of the cabinet. go out on the balcony and blast it a couple of times. this is frowned upon in manhattan. is this going to win over conservative toss gun control farmer joe biden waving his shotgun. >> how about a ban on pandering

which is what biden was doing. it would be nice if we could have our so-called progressive leaders not feel the leader to be shown shooting skeet. >> that's exactly what i was thinking. >> you know, how you should have-- >> right. >> he's the point man on anti-gun control and he's talking about how everyone should have a shotgun. that's wrong. >> that picture of obama, that to me, i lost complete respect. i thought i can't believe they're doing this. you know what to the nra, a lot of people don't have guns. they don't. >> yes that's why people encourage not onlying guns. >> they say you don't have to own guns and you don't have to show a gun to show the other people that you don't want to take their rights away. >> john: the photo of the president was an old photo taken awhile back. it wasn't john kerry desperately going on the campaign trail and going duck hunting. >> i thought they put a drone in

his hand. >> john: that's a very fair point. doesn't it help that they're not totally anti-gun. you have joe biden saying have a shotgun. >> can you do that for your party. >> there are a lot of who are anti-guns. >> john: you're talking to a mom and moms are the most important voting block in america. >> it wasn't until newtown massacre that anything was done at all. we went through years the gabby giffords everything, when no step at all. so this is progress. >> john: it is, but speaking of progress-- >> but it took those kids. it took little, innocent kids. >> john: and we'll see by the way if they even remember after a couple of weeks. we only have a couple of seconds before the break, but let it not be said that the right wing is not for decorum. they apologized for doctoring a photo of karl rove to look like this. >> where is the doctoring.

>> john: this is included in one of their e-mails without their approval and nazis are offended by it. this is like gozilla versus mothra. >> that outfit fit him perfectly. >> the tea party they're teaching a class at the new school photo shopping naziism because they were big putting hitler mustaches on obama. >> john: it comes back to the immigration. they have driven a wedge between the right wing and really right wing and it seems to be working. >> maybe there be another party. >> they're renaming it the kkk party. >> let's hear what they got to say. >> john: my panel stays with me after the break when i look at a poor, long suffering public figure who gives so much and only asks that you ignore everything that he has ever done. after this. [ ♪ music ♪ ]

>> john: welcome back. we need two segments for they can panels. a quick question. which person in the news is having the hardest time right now. sherrod? >> easy, blade runner. south african to do, no-leg runner. we're cheering for him u no legs and he's winning medal. now he's doing what we all dream we could do. >> what are you talking about. >> when he was representing his country. now-- >> oh, now. >> john: think oscar pistorius. >> i have to agree with sherrod. i could not think of anyone else except for rob morrison who had attacked his wife and had to redesign. they found steroids in his house. >> john: yes i heard-- >> you know what they didn't find in his house--legs. >> oh, that is so-- >> john: must better lighting in our courts.

very glamorous frank? >> i'm going with what they say. >> oh, my god frank. i think it's discouraging to know that sports figures are using steroids when killing people. >> they use it basically for everything. >> they just cheat all over the place. that brings us to tonight's f-bomb because i feel sorry for someone who is less pathetic than oscar pistorius. there are so few role models of humility and grace which brings me to cardinal mahony. he's not just the guy who covered up abuse and protected child-molesting priests but he would go up to people and forgive them. cardinal mahony blogged about his trials. he said most of us move on. like father o'grady who

allegedly molests hundreds of boys and girls. roger helped oliver move on where he suffered the little children in all new parishes. he wouldn't have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddleing kids and their lawyers. he wrote in past several days i have experienced many examples of being humiliated. in recent days i have been confronted in various place business very unhappy people. i could understand the depth of their anger and outrage at me at the church, about injustices that swirl around us. oh roger how awful you're being humiliated. it's almost as if someone you trusted took you in the backroom to exploit you and then made it was all your fault and then was transferred to another church by you. he wants people to know that he's following the path for jesus like jesus if he